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Don't Talk to the Actors Spring, 2024

The best laid plans go awry when the cast and crew of a Broadway-bound play resort to manipulation, diva-like behavior, and chaotic abandon to get what they want. Fledgling playwright Jerry Przpezniak and his fiancee are a couple of Buffalo greenhorns suddenly swept up in the whirlwind of New York's theater scene when Jerry's play is optioned for the big money, ego-driven world of Broadway. It's a young playwright's dream, but the crazy characters and dilemmas they encounter are the things theatrical nightmares are made of.

Three Days of Rain Fall, 2023

A year after he disappeared on the day of his father’s funeral, Walker Janeway returns to New York. He takes up temporary residence in the unused space where thirty-five years earlier, his father, Ned, and Ned’s late partner, Theo, both architects, lived and designed the great house that would make them famous. Sleepless and emotionally jangled, Walker scours the old empty space for clues, evidence or keys to the tortured family history. Discovering his father’s journal hidden under the bed, he finds it as unforthcoming as his nearly silent father had been. Walker is joined by his sister, Nan, and their friend from childhood, Pip, Theo’s son, to hear the reading of Ned’s will. It is there that Walker forces the confrontation that the others need. After an evening of harrowing and sometimes comically inadvertent revelations, Walker disappears once more. This time he returns later that evening with a surprising, but to him, definitive solution to the family puzzle. We travel back to 1960, when Ned’s journal begins. We meet the parents at the same age their children are in Act One: Ned, who seems very different from the cold monster the children conjured; the charismatic and putative genius, Theo; and Lena, Walker and Nan’s mother, the delightful, troubled “Southern woman who admits to thirty.” In the guise of a love story, we are offered all the information needed to devise an alternative reading of the sad, unexpectedly romantic family story.

The Bookstore Spring, 2023

The future of a whimsical, almost magical bookstore is uncertain after the owner dies and leaves the shop to her niece Rachel. Rachel has a job in New York City that doesn't pay her enough and a fiancé that won't stop calling. She doesn't have the time or patience to run a bookstore, so when real estate magnate Max Brewer offers her more money than she can imagine to turn the store into an apartment complex, her choice seems like a no-brainer. But as the shop works its magic on her and she gets to know the eccentric employees and clientele, she starts to wonder: Can you really put a price on a beloved community bookstore?

The Queen's Guard Fall, 2022

It is the winter of 1859 and scarlet fever is rife in New England. As two children, Frances and Julianne Beale, are recovering together, they amuse themselves by playing a game of chess. But it is no ordinary game. Frances is following a historical chess book and convinces Julianne to turn their chess pieces into imaginary characters who come alive on the stage. What follows is a melodrama of sword fighting, murder, betrayal, love, and sacrifice, all against the background of a large chess board and moveable pieces. The Alabaster king has died and his widow, Queen Agnes, will do anything to protect her son, Prince Patrick, from her ambitious brother, the King of Obsidia. As the Obsidian forces enter the Alabaster Valley, their plot to poison the young prince is thwarted by a coalition of scrappy soldiers, bumbling bishops, and two star-crossed lovers who must find courage to be more than mere pawns in their two kingdoms at war.

The Butler Did It! Spring, 2022

This comedy parodies every English mystery play ever written: but it has a decidedly American flair. Miss Maple, a dowager with a reputation for "clever" weekend parties, invites a group of detective writers to eerie Ravenswood Manor on Turkey Island where they are to impersonate their fictional characters. The hostess has arranged all sorts of amusing incidents: a mysterious voice on the radio, a menacing face at the window, a mad killer on the loose. Who is that body in the wine cellar anyway? Why do little figurines keep toppling from the mantle? Then a real murder takes place, and Miss Maple is outraged. She offers an immense reward to the "detective" who can bring the killer to justice. And what an assortment of zany would-be sleuths! When they're not busy tripping over clues, they trip over each other! Laughs collide with thrills, and the climax is a real seat-grabber as the true killer is unmasked, and almost everyone turns out to be someone else! Can be played as a pure farce, or as humorous satire.

Night Watch Fall, 2021

Unable to sleep, Elaine Wheeler paces the living room of her Manhattan townhouse, troubled by unsettling memories and vague fears. Her husband tries to comfort her, but when he steps away for a moment Elaine screams as she sees (or believes she sees) the body of a dead man in the window across the way. The police are called, but find nothing except an empty chair. Elaine’s terror grows as shortly thereafter she sees still another body—this time a woman’s—but by now the police are skeptical and pay no heed to her frantic pleas. Her husband, claiming that Elaine may be on the verge of a breakdown, calls in a lady psychiatrist, who agrees with his suggestion that Elaine should commit herself to a sanitarium for treatment. From this point on, the plot moves quickly and grippingly as those involved—Elaine’s old friend and house guest Blanche; the inquisitive and rather sinister man who lives next door; and the nosy German maid Helga—all contribute to the deepening suspense and mystery of the play as it draws towards its riveting and chilling climax.

The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon Spring, 2021

The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm are turned on their heads and catapulted online in this fast-paced, rollicking ride. Two narrators and several actors attempt to combine all 209 stories, ranging from classics like Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel to more bizarre, obscure stories like Faithful Johannes. A wild, free-form comedy with lots of madcap fun.

 

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Noises Off! Spring, 2020

Called "the funniest farce ever written," Noises Off presents a manic menagerie of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called Nothing’s On. Doors slamming, on and offstage intrigue, and an errant herring all figure in the plot of this hilarious and classically comic play.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Fall, 2019

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a horror story mixed in a drama, mixed in a mystery, mixed in philosophy.  Good vs. evil is basically the novel's biggest theme, inspired by two of the "Mr. Hyde's" in Robert Louis Stevenson's life. More specifically, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is easily viewed as an allegory about the good and evil that exist in all men, and about our struggle with these two sides of the human personality.

Lend Me A Tenor Spring, 2019

Lend Me a Tenor is set in September 1934. Saunders, the general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, is primed to welcome world-famous Tito Morelli, known as Il Stupendo, the greatest tenor of his generation, to appear for one night only as Otello. The star arrives late and, through a hilarious series of mishaps, is given a double dose of tranquilizers and passes out. His pulse is so low that Saunders and his assistant, Max, believe he's dead. In a frantic attempt to salvage the evening, Saunders persuades Max to get into Morelli's Otello costume and fool the audience into thinking he's Il Stupendo. Max succeeds admirably, but Morelli comes to and gets into his other costume, ready to perform. Now two Otellos are running around in costume and two women are running around in lingerie, each thinking she is with Il Stupendo.

Murder Me Always Fall, 2018

During a very bad performance of the play "Murder Me Always" , an actual murder takes place off stage. The Director is shot. The "fake" murder mystery play comes to a screeching halt and a "real" murder mystery begins. 

It seems that the "Murder Mystery Murderer" is on the loose and has struck again!

Luckily, Detective Joe Mamet, a Raymond Chandler Pulp type gumshoe was on a stakeout  in the audience.  Detective Mamet rises to the occasion to begin an investigation into this real mystery.  Could it be that one of these very bad actors is really a very bad person?

Rumors Spring, 2018

At a large, tastefully-appointed Sneden's Landing townhouse, the Deputy Mayor of New York has just shot himself. Though only a flesh wound, four couples are about to experience a severe attack of Farce. Gathering for their tenth wedding anniversary, the host lies bleeding in the other room, and his wife is nowhere in sight. His lawyer, Ken, and wife, Chris, must get "the story" straight before the other guests arrive. As the confusions and mis-communications mount, the evening spins off into classic farcical hilarity.

Much Ado About Nothing Fall, 2017

In this Shakespearian comedy, a prince returns from battle and a party is thrown, and a wedding is announced between a soldier and his beloved. Romance and intrigue abound as emotions flare and a dark character tries to stop the wedding and exact his revenge on the prince, fraudulently accusing an innocent woman of infidelity.

And Then There Were None Spring, 2017

Ten guilty strangers are trapped on an island. One by one they are accused of murder; one by one they start to die. In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten "soldiers" met his death until there were none.

Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned. A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead - poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up in this ideal play for schools, colleges, and community theatres.

The Picture of Dorian Gray Fall, 2016

The LTU Society of Dramatic Arts is pleased to present an adaption of Oscar Wilde's classic macabre story of Dorian Gray.  Dorian lives a life of debauchary, and while his friends and family suffer through it, Dorian never seems to experience any ill effects himself. Meanwhile, a painting of him bears the true effects of his lifestyle, slowly rotting away.

A Family Reunion to Die For Spring, 2016

It's time for the Knotting Family Reunion, and newlywed Christine Franklin is eager to show off her husband Freddie to the family she hasn't seen in years.  The joyful reunion quickly turns sour though when Aunt Gretchen, Cousin Rachel, and Cousin Stefan are all murdered.  The members of the Knotting Family are dropping like flies, and Christine seems to be next in line to become a victim!  To make matters worse, a terrible storm has trapped all of the guests inside.  It's up to Freddie to catch the murderer and save his blushing bride.  After all, he is a detective — well, a mall security guard turned wannabe detective, anyway.  Who is trying to wipe out the Knotting family?  Is it the pair of squirrel-hunting hillbilly sisters with their rifle?  The former Vegas showgirl with a knack for knitting?  The maid with a single digit IQ?  The grouchy cook?  The bitter journalist?  The troupe of mimes?  Gretchen, Rachel, and Stefan return from the dead, and with the audience's help, teach Freddie what it takes to be a real detective.  Complete with a hilarious chase scene, a chance for several of the characters to interact with the audience and a few surprising plot twists, this refreshingly fun, murder mystery comedy is the perfect play for high school ages and up.

Frankenstein Fall, 2015

Join the tale of Victor Frankenstein as his addiction with discovering the deepest secrets of life leads him to the final edge: challenging death itself. Dorothy Louise's adaptation returns to Shelley's original story, showing both the Creature's descent into malignity and Victor's journey to claw his way out of his self-created abyss without losing everything he holds dear.

Harvey Spring, 2015

Elwood P. Dowd is an endlessly pleasant & delightfully eccentric bachelor living in a small town that isn't quite aware that its newest citizen is a 6'3" white rabbit named "Harvey," that only certain people can see. After supposedly meeting this rabbit - its origins attributed to the Celtic legend of the Pooka - Dowd's sanity is put into question by his equally eccentric sister, Veta Louise.

Elwood casually drives his sister's guests from their house by introducing and carrying on one-sided conversations with his invisible and silent friend. His sister and niece, Myrtle Mae, resort to taking him to the local sanitarium to have him committed. However, due to people not paying attention, interrupting, and cutting Elwood off as he is about to introduce his imaginary friend, it doesn't immediately appear that there is anything wrong with him, and so the examining doctor admits Veta instead!

A celebrated success: This play has become one of the most successful and popular plays ever offered to nonprofessionals.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Fall, 2014

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," William Shakespeare's most popular comedy, was written around 1594 or 95. It portrays the adventures of four young lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with woodland fairies and a duke and duchess. Taking place in a mythical Athens and an enchanted forest, there is a handsome fairy king, a misguided parent, arranged marriages, a weaver who's transformed into a half-donkey, wood sprites and elves. This work is widely performed around the world, and no wonder - it's about the world's most popular pastime, falling in love. But as Puck knows, falling in love can make fools of us all.

The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 Spring, 2014

The creative team responsible for a recent Broadway flop (in which three chorus girls were murdered by the mysterious "Stage Door Slasher") assemble for a backer's audition of their new show at the Westchester estate of a wealthy "angel." The house is replete with sliding panels, secret passageways and a German maid who is apparently four different people—all of which figure diabolically in the comic mayhem which follows when the infamous "Slasher" makes his reappearance and strikes again—and again. As the composer, lyricist, actors and director prepare their performance, and a blizzard cuts off any possible retreat, bodies start to drop in plain sight, knives spring out of nowhere, masked figures drag their victims behind swiveling bookcases, and accusing fingers point in all directions. However, and with no thanks to the bumbling police inspector who snowshoes in to investigate, the mystery is solved in the nick of time and the "Slasher" unmasked—but not before the audience has been treated to a sidesplitting good time and a generous serving of the author's biting, satiric and refreshingly irreverent wit.

Radium Girls Fall, 2013

In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie was an international celebrity, and luminous watches were the latest rage—until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease. Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees. As the case goes on, however, Grace finds herself battling not just with the U.S. Radium Corporation, but with her own family and friends, who fear that her campaign for justice will backfire. Written with warmth and humor, Radium Girls is a fast-moving, highly theatrical ensemble piece. Called a "powerful" and "engrossing" drama by critics, Radium Girls offers a wry, unflinching look at the peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth, and the commercialization of science.

The Curious Savage Spring, 2013

Mrs. Savage has inherited ten million dollars but her eager step-children wish to assist her in disbursing the funds. When she is institutionalized by them, she discovers various social misfits who need the help she can provide. This comedy leaves the audience feeling that the neglected virtues of kindness and affection have not been entirely lost in a world that seems at times to only be motivated by greed and dishonesty.

The Crucible Fall, 2012

"The Crucible" is a brilliant illustration of the adage, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Abigail is a young woman who has been betrayed by a married man. In an attempt to take him for her own, she hatches a dangerous plot involving falsehood, witchcraft, and murder. However, when this tangled web accidentally snags the man she loves, it's anyone's guess as to who will break first.

"The Crucible" was written as a parallel to the infamous "Red Scare" of the 1950's, during which any action deemed "unusual" or "unpatriotic" was seen as a potential indicator of Communistic tendencies. In 1953, it won the "Best Play" Tony Award, and has remained a staple of American literature ever since.

 

Image credit goes to Malaspina University-College Theatre Department

Rehearsal for Murder Spring, 2012

Welcome to 1950's New York, as playwright Alex Dennison turns on the stage work light and prepares for the first reading of his new play.  As the actors, producer, director, and others connected with the latest show come onto the stage, we discover that everyone connected with this play was involved with another play by the same playwright.  At its opening night, exactly one year ago and in the same theater, the beautiful leading lady, who was also the playwright's fiancee, was found dead, believed to have committed suicide.  As these people start with the new play, startling connections to the murder begin to unfold.  The growing tension reaches a boiling point with surprising revelations, countered by others even more surprising.

Hedda Gabler Fall, 2011

Please pardon our dust as we are still completing the archive info on Hedda Gabler

Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein Spring, 2011

Shel Silverstein is renown for his poetry, but his talents also extended to the theatrical arts.  In January 1959, Look Charlie: A Short History of the Pratfall was a chaotic off-Broadway comedy staged by Silverstein, Jean Shepherd and Herb Gardner at New York's Orpheum Theatre on Second Avenue in the Lower East Side. Silverstein went on to write more than 100 one-act plays. The Devil and Billy Markham, published in Playboy in 1979, was later adapted into a solo one-act play that debuted on a double bill with Mamet's Bobby Gould in Hell (1989) with Dr. Hook vocalist Dennis Locorriere narrating. Karen Kohlhaas directed An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, produced by New York's Atlantic Theater Company in September 2001 with ten short sketches, eight of which you will see here tonight.

Fuddy Meers Fall, 2010

The story of an amnesiac, Claire, who awakens each morning as a blank slate on which her husband and teenage son must imprint the facts of her life. One morning Claire is abducted by a limping, lisping man who claims her husband wants to kill her. The audience views the ensuing mayhem through the kaleidoscope of Claire's world. The play culminates in a cacophony of revelations, proving that everything is not what it appears to be.

The Importance of Being Earnest Spring, 2010

Algernon Moncrieff, an aristocratic young londoner, is visited by his best friend, whom he knows as Ernest Worthing.  Ernest arrives from the country with the intention of proposing to Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen.  Algernon refuses to grand Ernest his permission until he explains why the cigarette case he left in Algernon's flat bear's the inscription "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." "Ernest" is thus forced to disclose that he is leading a double life: in the country, he goes by the name of John (or Jack), pretending that he has a wastrel brother named Ernest living in London and requiring his frequent attention. He assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his ward, Cecily, the granddaughter of Jack's late adoptive father, but in the city, he assumes the name and behavior of the libertine Ernest. Algernon reveals that he engages in a similar deception: he pretends to have an invalid friend named Bunbury in the country; whenever Algernon wants to avoid unwelcome social obligations, he "goes bunburying" instead. Combine these two and surprises are all that can ensue.

David and Lisa Fall, 2009

David, only son of wealthy parents, over-protected by a dominating mother, is tortured by his mania against being touched.  And Lisa, the waif who has never known parental love, who has developed a split personality and is in effect two different girls, one of whom will only speak in childish rhymes and insists on being spoken to in the same manner.  The play follows them during the course of one term at Barkley School, where they have come under the sympathetic and understanding guidance of psychiatrist Alan Swinford and his staff, follows them through exhilarating progress and depressing retrogression.  Included are their fellow students: Carlos, the street urchin, the over-romantic Kate, stout Sandra who is unloved and unwanted by her glamorous father and step-mother, and others.  With laughter, heartbreak and suspense, the continuous absorption of an authentic and well-told story about problems that are totally unfamiliar to most of us.  The production is extremely simple; it is played against drapes using a minimum of props.

Arsenic and Old Lace Spring, 2009

The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide; a brother who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar of the Brewster home (which then serve as graves for the aunts' victims); and a murderous brother who has received plastic surgery performed by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein (a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran) to conceal his identity and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff (a self-referential joke, as the part was originally played by Karloff).

Flaming Idiots Fall, 2008

Carl and Phil decide that the ladder to success at the post office is missing a few rungs. They know that big money is waiting for people with entrepreneurial spirit and sound business judgement. They have lots of the spirit but little of the judgement and their new gourmet health food restaurant flounders. Zippy's, a popular cross town spot, has been crowded ever since Cy Manamalancia, a notorious mobster, was shot there and that was over twenty years ago. What if someone could get murdered in their restaurant?

Death of a Salesmen Spring, 2008

The depression of the 1930's was the turning point for an era of history in the United States. The American Dream, that amazing optimism and confidence, was shaken to its very core. Even though Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesmen" is not set during this Great Depression, the scars are still present as Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old salesman is left baffled at his failures. He lives in what is believed to be the greatest country in the world; a country of Manifest Destiny. But therein lies the problem: if every man builds his own path and something goes wrong, where can the fault lie but in himself? "If personal meaning in this cheer leader society lies in success, then failure must threaten identity itself" (intro).

Performance dedicated to Prof. Kevin Kelch and his family.

Dracula Fall, 2007

Please pardon our dust as we are still completing the archive info on Dracula

Taming of the Shrew Spring, 2007

Please pardon our dust as we are still completing the archive info on Taming of the Shrew